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Dozens die in fresh Baghdad bomb blasts

At least 36 dead in four car bomb blasts and mortar strikes in Shia areas of Iraqi capital.

16 Oct 2014 22:16 GMT

Bombings and a mortar strike in have struck Shia areas across Iraq killing dozens [Reuters]

At least 36 people have been killed in a series of car bomb and mortar attacks in Shia areas of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

A suicide car bomb hit an army checkpoint near a restaurant in the northern district of Talibiya on Thursday afternoon, killing nine people, officials said.

Less than an hour later, two of car bombs exploded in the district of al-Dawlai in western Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding 35.

Five mortar rounds hit the neighbouring Shia district of al-Shaoula, killing another five and wounding 21 others.

A car bomb then exploded in the nearby Hurriya district, leaving six dead and wounding 14 others.

An Iraqi Shia political figure blamed the attacks on ISIL.

"They are making a statement to the Shia fighting them... we can target you in your household," Kareem al-Nouri, from the Badr Organisation, a powerful Shia political party with a militia wing, told the Reuters news agency.

There was a relative lull in violence in Baghdad after the ISIL group swept the city of Mosul and much of northern Iraq in June and threatened to march on Iraq's capital.

The violence, however, has increased in the city since late September.

The UN says more than 1,110 people have been killed in acts of violence across Iraq in September.

According to an AFP news agency count, around 400 have already been killed this month.

Haider al-Abbadi has been prime minister for a month but is still without a defence or interior minister due to rifts among the country's main Shia and Sunni political parties.

In another attack on Thursday, five people were reported injured in a car-bombing in Tuz Khurmato, north of the capital.